Thanks for the replies, I'll see if there's some adjustments to be made to this thing.

Memories of sitting on a motorbike for the first time and immediately going "Yeah pushbike saddles are bullshit"

Other bike-related news, couple park trips ago there was a bloke trying to learn how to ride a unicycle and we chatted a bit

Back in my early 30's I wan convinced unicycles were the way to go, 'cause you don't have to chain them up outside the shop, just pick 'em up in the crook of your arm and carry them in. I mentioned this online and next time I visited family lo and behold, there was a unicycle.

Apparently someone'd found it in some bushes on the common. It'd obviously been thrown pretty hard.

BIKE THREAD: New rear shifter on, front derailer adjusted up too, disc brake in the back adjusted up so it ain't binding no more, thing's flying now! Got plenty of other improvements and realignments and relubrication and cleaning to do.

Working on pushbikes is satisfying. They're wide open and easy enough to work on that you can get really obvious-feeling-and-sounding improvements in very little time.

Bike thread: wow cleaning/lubing the chain made a BIG difference, also uh

Cycling sure changes your butt huh

Alright so, in the shower, showering my stuff, and noticing wow

Wew

Whoooo OK

So I've got the wee cycle computer thing working (standard leaky-battery repair, see many of my other posts) and it tells me I've gone like 3km on this thing, gonna guess probably about another 3 before it was working, so in just 6km of fairly unchallenging just-for-the-fun-of-going-fast cycling my arse has firmed up impressively and... elongated? Like, territory that I once thought of as "Lower back adjacent" are now Very Definitely Unmistakably Arse Meat?

And also like, my thighs and butt and lower back feel way more powerful? To where I'm wondering if this has increased my moving-heavy-stuff capacity?

Me, 8 years old: 🐀 "Cor, wouldn't it be ace if pushbikes had their own roads. Their own little roads that could take shortcuts where the big roads can't go. You wouldn't get shouted at for riding on the pavement, or shouted at for riding on the road, you'd have a Bike Road and it'd just be for bikes and the car drivers wouldn't get cross with you for going too slow and the walkers wouldn't get cross with you for going too fast. Bike roads. Wee little bike roads just for bikes. Cracking idea."

Me, in my forties: 🦝 *whimsical chuckle* "Ah, the follies of youth."

Me, still in my forties but now fully qualified to talk on infrastructure decisions having owned a bike for like two weeks: 🦝 "ACTUALLY YEAH SOD THIS THE LITTLE RAT WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG"

Kiddo is spoiled now and has two bikes, because I saw one for $20 that had suspension and a seven-speed gearbox. She's just figured out downshifting, took her a while to develop either the thumb strength or the technique.

Turned up at the park with 39km on the clock, kiddo went "Let's get to 50!" so that's what we did this afternoon, just zoomed around the park for 11km while she cycled up and down the gears

Also we went to the local bike co-op and got spouse a bike, here it is

I don't think I've ever ridden a step-through-frame bike before but I was chosen to take this for a test ride as spouse can't ride yet and wow, this thing is just... So. Chill.

My bike:
🚲 come sit on me
🦝 ok
🦝 wow you're not comfy at all
🚲 face down ass up, that's the way
🦝 is that for like
🦝 aerodynamics or something
🚲 uh yeah aerodynamics aye sure

Spouse's bike:
🚲 take a seat
🦝 wow it's like sitting in a chair
🚲 ??? how else would you sit???
🦝 face down ass up
🚲 you've been riding that aerodynamics guy haven't you

You literally sit normally? Like you're sitting at the computer? And pedal? And your feet when you're pedalling are pretty close to the ground, no worries about tipping over. Dude at the shop said it was a good beginner bike, I think it's just a good bike in general, it's a very easy relaxing ride, I could ride this around all day

Back in the day, back when I were a wee lad, this would've been called a girl's bike.

The difference between a girl's bike and a boy's bike is a boy's bike has the crossbar positioned such that an inexperienced rider can stop too suddenly, slide forward off the seat and slam their full body weight into wrapping their testicles around a steel bar at high speed

1980's
🐁 *holding ice against crotch* Dad, how come girl's bikes don't have the bollock-mashing bar
🐺 no need for it lad, they've got nae bollocks
🐁
🐺 not much point putting a bollock masher if there's nae bollocks to mash is there
🐺 be a bloody waste of money

2020's
🐀 *holding ice against crotch* Dad, why
🐁 You know, I asked my dad this when I was your age, and his answer doesn't really fit in this decade. You probably know a couple of girls with bollocks. Maybe a boy with no bollocks. Either way, girls with bollocks get to ride the bikes without the bollock-mashing bar, and boys with no bollocks can ride the bollock masher, in a lot of ways it's a more enlightened time
🐀 Dad what
🐁 I mean these days girls can ride the bollock mashing bikes too
🐁 So can non-binary folk, bollocks or no
🐀 dad
🐁 Anyway times change is what I'm saying
🐁 The important thing is squashing the bollocks
🐀
🐁 Flat

Bike Thread:

Wow truing up a wheel is a bit fiddly innit

I got a spoke wrench 'cause the trashbike had comedy wheels, I twisted and turned and got it more gooder, should have stopped at Good Enough but instead I got out the incredibly sensitive dial indicator I use for setting my table saw blade and oh man was that a bad idea. A wheel that eyeballed straight enough has that little needle swinging around like a fox's tail in a stripey sock factory.

NEVER LOOK CLOSELY AT ANYTHING is the lesson to take away here

Bike thread update: been riding just a couple times a week since last November, not for exercise, not for commuting, just for the simple joy of going fast. Didn't even ride at all in the cold-cold part of winter. Not even 100km on my odometer.

All the above is just for context. I just went to buy some new shorts, 'cause these ones are falling apart.

And man, see next CW'd post...

Dang, yeah, doing the same thing I do when I buy clothes (typically annually, still wishing I could just give my measurements to a bloke in a shed and have him chuck me a couple of bin bags), y'know, stick my hands in the pockets first to make sure they're worth trying on, liftyleggy, give a wiggle to make sure they're not gonna annoy me, turnyspinnyshoulderlooky to see how much I'll distract folk and WHOA HAHA WHAT HAPPENED THERE

You know how sometimes things change slowly over time and you get the occasional visceral reminder that recontextualizes the last few months?

Damn, my ass is fine now lol

This was totally worth it

I understand why some bike guys wear the tight stuff now, they say it's for aerodynamics or whatever but really it's because they're proud of their new arses and they wanna show them off

I paid $0 for this bike and it's given me hours of bonding time with my daughter and a butt my spouse can't keep her hands off

I am one of Those Guys now, I will evangelize bikes just so there can be more people in the world who are happy with their tocks

I cannot overemphasize enough the gratuitous overpayment in positive changes to my body in exchange for just how casually I've been riding this bike.

Someone who actually cared could get up early, set their odometer to zero, pass what I've done since November and get back home for a normal bedtime. I haven't commuted, I've barely done any hills, and I wasn't trying to exercise. I was half-assing it!

But my bike was all 🚲 Half-assing, huh? You've barely got three-eighths of an ass to start with, let's fix that

BIKE THREAD: Littleun's bike has always been hard to downshift. So far it's had its cables and housings cleaned, chain cleaned and lubed, housings and cable lubed (I was of two minds how the materials interact but decided heck with it let's give it a go), derailleur cleaned/lubed and endlessly adjusted, shifter and cable replaced, derailleur replaced, and now I've just got a package of new cable housings and fedi, dear fedi, as far as my pinball-technician's eyes can see there's just not anything else to change except the (admittedly dodgy-looking) housing geometry.

Any tips for routing the housing? To my eyes it looks like one or two too-sharp transitions